


The Oncoming Shadow

by PhoenyxNova



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Crowley is Kalfu, Dagon - Freeform, Gratuitous Smut, Gratuitous Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Kalfu is Crowley, M/M, Nyarlathotep - Freeform, SPN Eldritch Bang, Shadow over Innsmouth - Freeform, town of fish people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 02:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21190127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenyxNova/pseuds/PhoenyxNova
Summary: When Michael Shurley gets a letter from his long lost father, urging him to visit Stockton, MASS, he goes. He doesn't expect the secretive seaside town to be very receptive to strangers, and he is not disappointed. What he finds is a cult, a watery god that takes an interest in him, and his father - who isn't what he appears to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN Eldritch Bang, and art is done by the AMAZING, INCOMPARABLE, BEES.  
And a HUGE thank you to CR Noble for beta-ing!

The summer of 1934, officials of the federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient, coastal Massachusetts seaport of Stockton. The public first learned of it in February the following year, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting – under suitable precautions – of an enormous number of crumbing, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on decency.

Keener news-followers, however, wondered at the prodigious number of arrests, the abnormally large force of men used in making them, and the secrecy surrounding the disposal of the prisoners. No trials, or even definite charges were reported, nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular jails of the nation. There were vague statements about disease and internment camps, and later about dispersal in various naval and military prisons, but nothing positive ever developed. Stockton itself was left almost entirely depopulated, and is only just now beginning to show signs of a sluggishly revived existence.


	2. Chapter 2

Michael Shurley had never heard of Stockton before this letter, and so he had no earthly idea what to expect. He had bought a map to try to place exactly where Stockton was, but he couldn’t seem to find any village, town, or city by that name. Something possessed him to call the train station anyway, and he spun the rotary dial of the phone, laughing at the absurdity of what he was doing. “I think my dad’s playing some sort of practical joke on me,” he said into the receiver. “I got this letter, telling me to go to Stockton.” The other end of the line went deadly quiet. It was another couple of moments, and just as Michael was sure the call had dropped somehow – he had been clicking away at the receiver dock – the man he was connected to spoke up.

“Stockton’s the end of the line,” he said in a sort of warning voice. “Listen. I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve heard stories. Rumors, y’know? About some weird characters that live there. I can get you on the train there tonight, but you gotta promise me you’re gonna take care of yourself.”

Michael was, admittedly, mystified by the tone he was using to describe this place his father was summoning him to. Not only that, but he was baffled by this perfect stranger that had urged him to take care of himself. He found it extraordinarily odd but agreed all the same, and the next thing he knew, he was asking the operator to connect him with the local taxi company.

The ride there was very typical of most other taxi rides, right up until the driver asked where he was headed. As soon as he mentioned Stockton, the driver fell eerily silent, which was not typical of drivers as a general rule. The driver looked into his rear-view mirror and said, “Take care of yourself out there, y’hear?”

Michael blinked, taken aback by the second person in an hour to say those words to him, but before he could argue, they were at the train station. He gave the driver a dumbfounded look but slipped out of the taxi and walked to the ticket booth. He was sure he was starting to hear things, because as soon as he had mentioned Stockton as his destination, the ticket clerk urged him to “take care of yourself.”

At his point, Michael would just smile and assure them that yes, he would take care of himself. As he boarded the train, he prepared himself for someone else to come out of the woodwork to tell him to ‘take care of himself,’ but that fount seemed to have dried out now.

_ Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. _The train rumbled down the tracks, and Michael’s bright blue eyes strained to read the letter in his hands in the dim light, scanning the chicken scratch writing for some indication of why it had been sent. It was a letter, presumably from his father, summoning him to a small town in New England. For what purpose, it wasn’t clear, but he felt an undeniable pull to the village of Stockton.

It wasn’t the kind of pull that one would usually _ want _ to follow. Far from it. It was more of a morbid curiosity. The kind of morbid curiosity that left your guts in knots, sending your fight or flight response into a hell of an overdrive. His instincts screamed at him to stay home with his brother, but something made him buy the train ticket. He hadn’t seen his father in years, and now, out of the blue, he got a letter from him? It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense, and it put Michael in the most uncomfortable position of having to face the man that ran out on him and his brother all those years ago.

He began to question what he was doing on this train, but at this point it was far too late to turn back. No, he’d have to spend the night in Stockton before he could return home, so he may as well try to look past the sense of ominous foreboding he felt loom over him. No matter how he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t help but wonder why he was so compelled to follow through on his mission to search for his father.

Finally, he put the letter away and looked out the window at the lowlands beyond, barely illuminated by the lights of the train. Trying to keep his mind off of the letter until he reached the town, he glanced around the compartment of the train. He hadn’t really gotten a good look at it. It was almost dusk when he boarded the train, and the lights were only just now coming on. It was warm and pleasant enough, colored with rich reds and brass accents. The electric lights that lined the walkway glowed comfortingly, and he couldn’t help but feel almost entirely at peace. That is, despite the looming shadow that seemed to expand behind him.

His eyes traveled back to the window to look out at the darkening coastline. Watching the landscape zoom by was hypnotizing, to say the least. His eyelids drooped, growing heavier and heavier with the rocking of the train, until they finally shut.

Typically speaking, Michael was used to having a dreamless sleep. This, however, was not one of those sleeps.

_ Through the darkness, he came to in a place he didn’t recognize. He was in a cavern of some kind. Shadowy figures surrounded him, chattering and chanting in some foreign tongue he’d never heard before. The sound of it brought a sharp, searing pain to his head as his mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing. _

_ Towering spires, built with impossible geometries were all around him. _

_ Waves crashed against ... something. Something big. It sloshed through the water toward him. _

_ Michael’s heart raced and his eyes darted around the circle of shadows for help. He saw a familiar face, but it didn’t seem to recognize him. _

_ Turning back to the sound of the water, and what he saw turned his blood to ice. A shadow overcame his vision, forming a sort of vignette – a frame around… _

The screeching of the heavy brakes bringing the train to a halt at the Stockton station jarred Michael back to consciousness before he could process what he saw. He rubbed his eyes and stood, grabbing his pair of small suitcases, and stepped out of the train. He was, it seemed, the only one to do so.

The town of Stockton was unlike anything he’d ever seen before, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. It was dark, even when you took the streetlights into account. But, then, of course it was dark. It was the middle of the night. Daring to take a few cautious steps off the platform, Michael considered turning back and reboarding the train. He wasn’t sure what it was about the town, but there was something unnatural about it. Something malignant hung heavily in the air, sending chills down his spine. But in the time he hesitated, the train departed. So, that was that. He was here until at least the morning.

The shadows seemed to have a mind of their own, moving of their own accord through the ominous fog that blanketed the streets. But Michael felt strangely welcomed by the ocean-side town, thinking that in the daylight it was probably pleasant enough. There were sparse signs of habitation that littered the streets. Curtained windows, here and there, lanterns lining the porches of every home, and architecture that must have been from the early 19th century gave it all a very charming feel. 

Most of the homes were brick, but there were a few wood buildings adding character to the skyline. There were sags in some of the roofs that Michael could see, and some roofs that had wholly caved in. One or two of the homes seemed to be in moderately sound condition, though they were well back from the coastline. Most of the decay seemed to be closest to the beach, and he could only guess that it was a combination of wood rot and windblown sand that must have caused such rot in the buildings. Even the brick homes were well weathered. The wood ones were downright decrepit.

From the train station, Michael could see three steeples leering over the other buildings, though he noticed a distinct lack of crucifixes among them. They were unmistakably churches, but they were hardly houses of God. Only one appeared intact. The other two were crumbling, with only gaping black holes where clock dials should have been.

The harbor was well off in the distance from where Michael stood, and from the reflections on the water, he could see the silhouette of a few seated fishermen, though there were hardly any boats to speak of. At the end of the harbor seemed to be the ruins of what might have been a lighthouse. Michael thought it was strange that there seemed to be no effort put into fixing the lighthouse, but there must have been good reason for it. Right? 

Far out at sea, despite the high tide, he spied a long black line, scarcely rising above the water, yet carrying a suggestion of odd, latent malignancy. He could tell it was a reef, but the way the waves crashed against it, it almost seemed to move of its own accord. And, pervading everything, was the most nauseating fishy odor.

Very few cars were parked on the street, most of them the standard Model B automobile, but there was the odd 1925 Renault 6 CV NN that gave the town an otherworldly look. In the darkness, it was hard to make out the color of any of the automobiles. Not that it particularly mattered. If anything, he just wanted to find one thing that would make this town feel more normal.

Oil lamps seemed to be the favored method of lighting in Stockton. The lanterns were sparse, but did their job of illuminating the street. However, there was an underlying darkness that Michael could sense. A darkness apart from the shadows that appeared to reach out to him and claw at his being. He couldn’t place what it was, but there was something off about this place. Then it hit him. 

He hadn’t seen any people yet.

On the train was one thing. After all, the train had been running for several hours without stopping. He assumed that the train attendant had fallen asleep, and he hadn’t ventured outside his car, so it was likely that there were, in fact, other people on the train with him. But he didn’t see anyone. No one was in the streets, though Michael shook his head. He might have been less surprised by this fact. It was late, after all.

Something about this place gave him the creeps. It was more than the unnatural darkness and the lack of people. There was something sinister at work here. He could have made more of an effort to ignore it, but the longer he went without looking at anything, the easier it was to push the oddities from his mind. Something primal within him tried to urge him to pay attention to it, but his more rational brain suggested there was nothing really to worry about. After all, his father wouldn’t have reached out to him if it wasn’t important. He was sure of it. Chuck Shurley was a great many things, but he wasn’t an alarmist.

Finally, when it seemed like the entire town may have been abandoned while he was on the way there, he saw a large man, lumbering around. From behind, all he could tell was that this man was huge. Built like a building. He jogged up ahead and called after the man. “Hey! Excuse me!”

The man turned, and Michael screeched to a halt, jaw dropped. Without intending to, he took a step back, away from the man in front of him. The stranger was dressed well enough, but his eyes were wide. Very wide. Impossibly wide, and set too far apart. His mouth seemed to be in a permanent frown. In the dim light, the man’s skin appeared to be a dark grey, but that couldn’t have been right. It wasn’t natural. It must have been his tired eyes. Michael caught himself thinking that the man in front of him looked not unlike a frog. Michael was shocked at the sight of the man’s face, and the frog-man slowly turned and started to walk again.

Michael glanced around, half expecting to see someone look every bit as bewildered as he felt, and, despite the feeling in his gut, he followed the compulsion to venture further into town. He needed to find lodging, after all, and there was no way to do that from the train platform. He set the strap of one suitcase over his shoulder and carried the other in his left hand, stepping onto the sidewalk to head for what he assumed was the downtown area. It was the only part of town that seemed to be at all, and quite surprisingly, busy. Well … for lack of a better word.

There were actually people wandering the sidewalks, and – though Michael didn’t get a close look – they seemed almost normal. Michael hardly knew what to make of them. They were as furtive and seldom seen as burrowing animals. He could hardly imagine how they passed the time, apart from their desultory fishing. They seemed sullenly banded together in some sort of fellowship and understanding, despising the world as if they had access to other and more preferable spheres of entity.

Their appearances, especially those staring, unwinking eyes which he never saw shut, were unsettling enough. When he came to think of it, it was generally only young people Michael saw about in public, and the oldest of these were apt to be the most tainted looking. When exceptions did occur, they were mostly persons with no trace of aberrancy, much like the clock atop the steeple to the right of his vision. He was left to wonder what had become of the older folk, and if what he had come to think of as the Stockton Look was a strange and insidious disease phenomenon which got worse as the years advanced.

Like most everything else he had seen so far, he decided to look the other way when it came to the strange malady that afflicted the people of Stockton. He turned his attentions back to the town itself, and the square in which he stood. Being that it was the town center, it was a safe bet that there might be a hotel of some kind nearby. He got the distinct impression it wasn’t wise for non-natives to be out too late. 

Besides, the streets were loathsomely dark.

As luck would have it, there was indeed an inn just around the corner and down the street from the train station. It looked a little run down, like it hadn’t been properly cared for in a few years. In fact, much of the town looked like the underside of a ship. Water damaged, with various forms of life beginning to overtake it. 

Michael almost didn’t recognize the building in front of him as an inn, as it looked like it was quite out of service. Its once white paint was now grey and peeling with age, but it seemed to be kept in just well enough condition to be fit for habitation. He looked up and saw a sign. Most of it was faded from the onslaught of the salty sea air, but he could just barely make out the words ‘The Arcane Order of Kalfu’ at the bottom of the sign. Curious about what that might have meant, he stared at the words. It must have been a structure that was recently claimed by a degraded cult. He continued staring at the sign for a few moments, unable to shake the strange feeling of déjà vu that crept over him.

Seeing one of the townspeople go inside to make use of the bar, however, gave him some small amount of hope that perhaps he might be able to find a place to sleep for the night.

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, he pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped inside.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this dive bar with one patron that looked like he might have been there so long he was fused to the barstool. Glancing around, he took notice of the one he saw enter the bar, which did not have the Stockton Look. It was dim, but it almost looked like those varied life forms from the buildings outside seemed to be reclaiming the people as well.

He looked around curiously and set one of his bags on the ground in front of the bar. If he had thought the outside of the place was run down, he wasn’t sure what could possibly describe the inside. The walls were swollen with water damage, and the tables slick with grime. The chairs were all wonky and off balance, as if _ by design _ they were meant to be uncomfortable. The bar was lit by more oil lanterns, and it seemed as though they were leaking dangerously onto the damp wood of the tables. Out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw his father, watching him. When he looked, though, the familiar face was gone.

He made his way over to the bar and ordered a beer for himself, glancing over at the sedentary bar goer in curiosity. He had to do a double take, because he could swear he saw gills on the man. Shrugging it off as a trick of the light, he turned to the barkeep and offered a smile. “Excuse me?” When the man turned, he looked as though he had just come from the ocean itself. Perhaps he had gotten caught in the rain. Upon closer inspection, it appeared as though the man’s hair was made of seaweed, but that was probably the shadows playing with his mind again. He shook his head, clearing it of those thoughts, and smiled again. “I would like a room.”

The man looked bewildered, but silently nodded and walked to the wall of hooks, all holding keys. He scanned through them, though Michael wasn’t sure why. Through the thick layer of dust and the numerous cobwebs, he could tell that none of the keys had been used in decades. They must not get a lot of visitors.

Without saying a word, the barkeep handed Michael the key to one of the rooms, and the stranger in town made his way up the rickety wooden staircase to the next floor.

He didn’t trust the stairs, if he was honest. Each step creaked. The kind of creak that suggested a very bad case of wood rot. Presumably, the sea air had moistened the wood and therefore weakened it. He prayed to whatever god might be listening that the stairs wouldn’t collapse on him, and that he’d safely make it to the second floor.

Fortune was on his side, and Michael hurried into his room. He felt around for a light switch, but couldn’t find one, suddenly remembering this town was still using oil lamps. He groped his way through the room until he felt his fingers collide with the cool glass of a hurricane lamp. His eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, but he had to fumble with it a minute before he finally did locate the release to open the lamp. He swore quietly to himself, and pat down his own pockets to see if he had anything that resembled a match. Breathing a soft sigh of relief, he withdrew a box of matches from his breast pocket of his jacket and light the wick. He gently turned the nozzle to brighten the flame and reset the glass, taking a moment to look around his temporary quarters.

The room was small. Much smaller than Michael would have expected, but he wasn’t particularly surprised, given the atmosphere of the town. What did surprise him, however, was just how dilapidated the room seemed to be. The room was gruesomely musty. As it was, the room’s general mustiness blended horribly with the town’s fishy odor. The last resident must have left it in this state, which gave Michael a distressing feeling in his gut. He was getting a lot of those in this town.

The lamp sat on a dusty old dresser that, like the tables downstairs, seemed to be covered in grit and grime. The previous tenant left a mountain of books stacked in the corner, and something seemed to have knocked it over. The door from the closet, perhaps. He considered, however briefly, trying to make use of the closet, but a quick glance inside made him rethink that. It looked as though someone had been searching inside it for something, and Michael wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what it was, or if they’d found it.

He might have been able to look past that, though, if it wasn’t for that gnawing feeling in his stomach. What triggered this particular distressed feeling, was seeing the writing on the wall. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the characters were glyphs of an ancient language. Somewhere in the back of Michael’s mind grew an itch that perhaps he knew what it was saying, but he couldn’t quite place it. The harder he stared at the etchings, the more his mind worked to rationalize what he was looking at. More than likely, they were the scrawlings of some depraved lunatic, which meant that –

_ THWACK! _

His train of thought was violently derailed by the sound of a bird hitting the window. He watched it fly off in a frantic flutter of feathers, and turned his attention to the sorry excuse for a bed. A rickety old metal frame with absolutely no bells and whistles, and must have been as old as the town. The sheets were still disheveled from the previous tenant’s use and Michael was pretty sure there were still small flecks of some dried, unidentifiable fluid.

It was all so much to take in. The unidentifiable flecks on the sheet, the etchings on the wall, the knocked over tower of books cascading into a small mountain of paper, the indeterminate substance leaking from the roof… But, he found that his concerns slipped easily from his mind when he wasn’t directly looking at any of it. After all, it would not do to dwell over the abnormalities over this ancient, blight shadowed town, especially while he was still within its borders. Ideally he would only be here for one night – less, if he could manage it – and the people he had run into so far didn’t seem friendly enough to understand if someone had concerns about _ blood on their sheets _. No, it was probably better to just keep his head down and make it through the night.

It’s just for the one night, he kept telling himself. Just the one night, and then he could go home. He was going to learn tomorrow that his father had skipped town before Michael arrived, and he was going to go home. Then he would never have to think about this town again. Something in the back of his head, though, seemed happy enough to overlook everything, from the frog man he’d run into down to the panicked scribbling on the walls in front of him now. Frankly, he was willing to look the other way if he knew he wasn’t staying.

He took off his shirt and folded it carefully to lay over one of his suitcases. He opened the other one and stared into its contents for a moment before thinking better of changing into night clothes. He was tired. So tired, in fact, that it was remarkable he was still upright. The bed didn’t look particularly inviting, but then again, it didn’t have to. It was just a bed. As long as it was a flat surface he could sleep upon, Michael didn’t have room to be picky.

He plopped heavily down onto it and star-fished himself out, stretching his arms and legs to take up as much of the bed as he could manage. Inhaling deeply into his lungs, he let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. He shifted uncomfortably in the bed, trying to find a cozy position to sleep in, but the attempt was in vain. All but giving up, Michael rested his arms behind his head and wriggled into the unpleasantly firm mattress.

He was almost asleep when he heard the floor creak. His eyes blinked open and darted around the room to see what might have made the noise. In the dim, fading light of the lamp, he saw two hooded figures skulking toward him. He jolted upright and scrambled away until his back pressed harshly against the wall. His breath hitched in his throat and he found that, try as he may, he couldn’t scream.


	3. Chapter 3

The two men lunged forward to try to grab Michael, but they just missed him. He ducked out of the way just in time and clambered to his feet, stumbling slightly in his haste to get away from the shadowy figures. The shorter of the two swung his fist wildly in Michael’s direction, and he barely got out of the way. It was such a near miss, he felt the slight breeze the figure’s fist made.

The taller man was slower, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. He lurched forward to grapple with Michael and managed to wrestle him down to one knee. He leaned in, closer and closer to Michael’s face, until the younger man slammed his forehead into his attacker’s nose.

Or, at least, what he assumed was his attacker’s nose.

The larger man’s head snapped back from the force of the impact, knocking his hood off. The face that looked back at Michael was something he never would have expected. It looked like his skin was melting off of his skull, while simultaneously swelling to awkward proportions. The skin was pink and glistened like it was coated with a thin layer of slime. Michael’s attention was drawn to his nose, which looked as though it was sagging off of his face, lips contorted in … well, less of a scowl and more a look of abject disappointment. His hands were large and veiny, with a greenish blue tinge. The man’s eyes were, unlike the men he’d run into before, small and beady, though were still set too far apart. If Michael didn’t know any better, he’d have thought for a moment that his eyes were nothing more than two black buttons hastily pasted onto a melting strawberry ice cream cone.

Michael put all of his strength into getting the horrible man away from him, and knocked him into his cohort. The shorter of the two attackers let his hood fall and bared his abnormally long, sharp teeth. His bottom jaw jutted out, mouth forming a permanent grimace, teeth forking up to draw attention back to the greenish black skin that seemed to spike out at awkward angles in irregular patterns. The man’s ears appeared to be shaped like fins, and twitched slightly as though they were. There was a long, strange limb that protruded out of the shorter man’s forehead that glowed with bioluminescence. How Michael hadn’t seen it before, he wasn’t sure, but now that he saw it, it was hard not to look at it. The soft glow of the extremity was oddly calming.

So calming, in fact, that Michael didn’t notice the taller man behind him until his arm was already around his throat.

Michael thrashed desperately, trying to pull the arm down off of his neck to open his airway back up. He flailed and kicked, but then he caught sight of that soft glow once more. His mind went blank, hypnotized by the bobbing light, and the way it swayed back and forth like a pendulum, its pale blue light thrumming unnaturally.

Soon, that light was all Michael could see. Darkness closed in around him, and then … the light went out as unconsciousness took hold of him.

But to say that he was unconscious would be telling a lie. Really, he was conscious, but helpless to defend himself against the monsters that dragged him unceremoniously through the town. Michael’s eyes blearily rolled to and fro, scanning the environment for anyone or any _ thing _ that might look friendly. All he saw were other … creatures.

Creatures that weren’t simian, but also weren’t quite fish. The one thing they all seemed to share was wide eyes too far apart, which seemed never to blink. The eyes, and what seemed to be barnacles growing out of their bodies. One, he noticed, seemed to have a starfish fused with his head, just to the right of his eye. Another appeared to have crab legs growing out of his back, twitching as though trying to walk on air. More, even than that, gave the impression of being something between man and coral. 

Michael was left to wonder, in his questionably conscious mind, if they had always been like that or if something had changed them. Seeing people standing side by side, he could tell they were in varying stages of what could only be described as mutation. His gut reaction was to try not to think about it, but he had seen where looking the other way had gotten him.

The onlookers gathered, and there were surprisingly few of them, considering the size of the town. It may have been late night or early morning, but Michael had the feeling that almost everyone in town was in the square, watching him be dragged off to who knows where. They followed curiously, but made no move to free him from his captors. Michael began to wonder how many times before they had dragged some stranger out of his room to be taken … somewhere.

He weakly started to flail and thrash, trying to free himself from the two men that were dragging him through the town. It was less an effort to get free and more an effort to be able to tell himself he had tried his best. His knees dragged against the cobblestone street, a dull ache radiating from the point where his legs hit the brick pavement. He couldn’t help but wonder why no one was helping him. Something was fishy about this town.

Consciousness fading in and out, Michael’s head lolled forward to dangle helplessly in front of him, chin bouncing against his collarbone with every step his captors took. His gaze remained on the grimy cobblestone beneath him, until he started to hear waves crashing against the local cliff side. About that time, the bricks ceased and he was being dragged through sand. They were on a beach. He raised his head to see where they were going and saw a cave lit with torches held by iron sconces. From somewhere deep within the cave, he could hear chanting resonating against the stone walls, echoing ominously against the rocks that lined their path.

Darkness took him once again, and when he came to, he felt the strangest sense of déjà vu. He was inside a cave with towering spires, built with impossible geometries. He couldn’t help but remember the dream he’d had on the train on the way here. The space was massive. Much more massive than the cave had looked from the outside looking in. Whoever these people were, and for whatever reason, they had carved stalactites and stalagmites into effigies of the same being, though it was once again hard to tell if it was man or beast. 

The chanting was louder, ringing in Michael’s ears at just the right tone to cause a splitting headache. He tried to stand from his kneeling position, but found that his ankles were bound with rope. It appeared his hands were bound as well.

Desperately, he looked around for anyone that might appear normal, to plead with them to let him go. The most normal face his eyes fell on was an all too familiar face. That much could be determined despite the hood.

“Dad?” Michael felt the color drain from his face. What was going on? “Dad, what’s happening?!” The desperation colored his voice, but his father didn’t look at him. 

In the dim light of the torches, Michael could see greenish-gray scales peppering his father’s face, irregular patches of short, curly hair forming that beard that Michael would always associate with his pater familias. Cold, sunken blue eyes finally met Michael’s from underneath the low set brow that appeared even lower as he furrowed his brow in concentration. Chuck Shurley was a great many things, but the man in front of Michael now? This man was no longer his father. Not the father he knew, anyway.

Moonlight poured through a stained glass window that acted as both ceiling and visual gateway to the heavens, as though illuminating a temple. Even as high up as it was, Michael could tell it was massive. It seemed to be depicting some sort of deity, but it was one Michael couldn’t recognize. The resemblance to the people to the town, though, was unmistakable. 

He looked frantically around for any indication of what was going on, when the ground beneath him began to quake. It subsided, then quaked again, this time shaking enough to knock some condensation off of the stalactite statues above him. Another tremor shuddered the ground, and Michael realized what it must have been. 

Footsteps.

Slowly, he raised his gaze to look up at the massive structure in front of him, when something caught his eye. A shadow on the wall began to emerge from deeper within the cave, and the shape of the shadow was both human and not. It was, interestingly, the same shape as the carvings.

From behind the structure in the center of the cavern, the creature made itself known. It was easily 50 feet tall and looked like a perfect marriage of sea creature and human, though all Michael could see through the darkness was the creature’s red eyes.

The people surrounding Michael, presumably cultists that worshipped this being like a deity, all stopped their chanting and knelt before their master. All, except Chuck. 

Chuck put his hands up in reverence of the being and let his gaze fall to the floor. “My lord Kalfu, we bring you a gift! My son, a man of 28, in peak physical condition. We offer him to you, that you may bless our town once more.”

**“Leave,”** boomed the deity. The cultists, terrified of angering their master, scrambled to their feet and climbed over each other to get to the mouth of the cave. All with the exception of Chuck. He looked coldly at Michael and set his hand on the boy’s shoulder before calmly disappearing into the long tunnel that must have led outside. Darkness swallowed the lot of them as a gust of wind extinguished the torches.

Michael turned his attention back to the massive figure that loomed over him, Kalfu. The creature, still cloaked in shadow, narrowed his red eyes and stepped back. Michael’s gaze flicked up to the wall to watch the shadow of the monster, heart pounding in his ears. What was going to happen to him? Was he going to be eaten? Was he going to be turned into one of those creatures in the town? Would he ever see his brother again? He cursed his father’s name. He cursed the fact that he had ever received that letter and got on the train.

When he refocused his attention back on the situation at hand, the shadow seemed to be regarding him carefully. It tilted its head one way, then the other and suddenly it began to shrink. 40, 30, 20 feet tall and still shrinking, it began to walk around the structure in the center of the cavern. It eventually disappeared, as did Kalfu’s barely noticeable silhouette, and when he reappeared, he wasn’t any taller than about 6’3”. Not much taller than Michael himself. Finally, Kalfu stepped into the moonlight streaming from the stained glass window above them, and revealed himself to Michael.

His red eyes had darkened to a harsh black, and when Michael considered the other creatures he had seen in the town, he noted that Kalfu’s eyes were comparatively small and close together, though still just far enough apart to be inhuman. His nose was barely more than a bump in the middle of his face, with slits where the nostrils would be. The mouth was like that of a fish, but his lips were full and oddly inviting.

Kalfu stepped further into the light and Michael could see the color of his skin… scales? It was hard to tell from this distance what it was. Whatever it was, it was a greenish grey with dark green markings that seemed to outline the contours of his body. From his collarbone to his pecs, down his well-toned arms, highlighting every line of muscle down to his webbed hands. Kalfu had what must have been fins of some kind adorning his neck, working their way up to the base of his skull like a regal collar. Michael’s eyes were drawn back to the face of the creature, now able to see the pale blue bioluminescent markings on his face. Michael was truly struck by how almost-human the face was.

The creature’s torso was less muscle and more armor plating, but was no less impressive. The pelvic fins traced the line of muscle down the creature’s thigh. Finlets outlined the calf muscles, and even the deity’s feet seemed surprisingly normal, despite the talons he had instead of toenails. They were feet, not fins.

Michael’s eyes roamed back up, and Kalfu’s body emitted a soft glow from the pale blue striped markings along his arms and sides. Michael felt an odd sense of relaxation wash over him, but it was unlike what he’d felt under the hypnotizing light of the man that captured him.

Kalfu stepped closer to Michael and set a scaly – Michael could now tell that he was scaly – hand on a bruise that was blossoming on the human’s face. Instinctively, Michael flinched away, trying to protest. He hadn’t realized how much it ached before, and Kalfu’s touch only grew gentler. A warm sensation radiated across the affected region, and then the pain was gone. He didn’t have a mirror, but he could guess that Kalfu had healed the bruise.

“What do you want from me?” Michael asked at last, unable to help the nervous tremor in his voice. He had read books. He knew he was a human sacrifice, but to what end? What did the townspeople hope to attain by sacrificing him? And why did his father summon him if he was only going to turn him over to a deity? Did he mean that little to his father?

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Kalfu purred, his voice far less booming than it was for the cultists. He looked Michael over, regarding him in much the same way Michael had done. His eyes were entirely black, but the human could see the eyes dart back and forth, really taking in every detail of Michael’s form they could. “I can assure you, though, you’re far safer with me than you were with them.”

Michael’s eyes met Kalfu’s and he was falling into an abyss. An endless void with no escape. His head was vibrating under the pressure, though he knew that couldn’t be right. His vision grew shaky, then blurry. He felt like his head was being crushed by a vice. He tried to look away, but couldn’t.

Kalfu covered Michael’s eyes and the sensation slowly faded to nothing more than a dull ache. He was in darkness for a moment before the god removed his hand, and Michael was facing another, much more human face. “Should’ve warned you about looking into my eyes. The thing about my kind is we tend to sap the sanity from anyone who dares look at us.” He offered a small smile. “What’s your name?”

“Michael. Michael Shurley.” Michael blinked and his eyes came into more focus, blinking away the rest of the pain in his head. He didn’t know what else to say, so he just regarded this human form for a second. It was shorter than Michael by at least a couple of inches. He looked middle-aged, the beginnings of wrinkles lining the creases next to his eyes. His eyes were dark brown, but kind. Surprisingly so, all things considered. This human form was not as well toned as the other, but it wasn’t particularly out of shape either. He had an average build. There was something, though, that made the human form inviting. Comforting. 

Just not comforting enough for Michael to forget what had happened so far that night.

“Is that what you did to my father?” Michael asked incredulously. “Did you drain his sanity?”

Kalfu let out a sigh and did what no one might have expected him to: He knelt down in front of Michael and touched his bindings. They dissolved into water, and the human rubbed at his wrists where the rope had dug painfully in. “He did that to himself,” the shorter man said, rather softly. “Those lunatics that call themselves the Arcane Order of Kalfu, they got a hold of him. Before I knew it, he was their leader.” He melted the bindings from Michael’s ankles and stood, offering a hand to the human. “If I had known he was going to try to sacrifice his own son, I might have stepped in earlier.” He turned to walk away, hands sliding into the pockets of his trousers. “I’m giving you a choice. You can make a break for it and take your chances with the cult and the townspeople, or you can come with me.” He turned, but Michael was already gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Michael was running as fast as he could into the dark maw of the cave. He couldn’t see where he was going, but he wanted to get out of there. He needed to get out of there. All he wanted was to go home. Being kidnapped by  _ anyone _ has that effect on people. It didn’t help that he was kidnapped by a human blob.

He stumbled over rocks and stalagmites, but he used his momentum to keep himself moving forward. He didn’t stop running until he got to the inn. He burst into his room, ignoring the protestations from the barkeep that he needed to go back to the cave. Of course, he found that his luggage was gone, but that was fine. One less thing to pack. He turned to head toward the station, but something stopped him.

It wasn’t his father. He’d been away from his father too long to feel any real sense of kinship with him. No, he couldn’t stop thinking of Kalfu. He had been so sure the deity was lying to him about … well, everything. But why would he bother? It couldn’t have just been a ploy to keep him there, could it? And if it was, why?

His head started pounding, and the image of Kalfu’s true form was all he could think of. What surprised him was that he wasn’t filled with a feeling of tremendous fear, like he should have been. What surprised him was that he was filled with an overwhelming curiosity. A morbid fascination with the creature in the cave. Now that he thought about it, maybe he should have tried to stay. Kalfu wouldn’t have offered to let him leave as a one-time offer. Would he?

He started to run toward the safety of the train station, only slowing to a walk when he was sure he was out of danger. He went up to the ticket counter and knocked on the glass, desperately banging away in hopes that someone would come to his rescue. At the very least, he could have begged for a place to hide until morning when the train came in. He cupped his hands over the glass to peer in through the window, but it was no use. There was no one there.

With a tremendous sigh, he stepped into the train station, idly wondering if this was what a bum felt like most nights. No possessions to speak of, shivering as his bare skin was bombarded with the cold seaside air, just looking for shelter, and possibly running away from something truly horrifying.

There was a tremendous screeching from outside that broke Michael from his thoughts. No. No, he had to get out of here. If he stayed, he was in danger. He was sure of it. He had to be sure of it. To question anything anymore seemed like it would just lead him down the path his father had walked. The path to madness.

He ran to the window to look at the thing that had made the noise, and gawked at what he saw.

The beast was easily six feet in length. Almond shaped body – like a barrel with five bulging ridges instead of staves. Its gnashing teeth protruded from a slobbering mouth. A set of five leathery wings, not unlike a bat’s, sprouting from its back that folded and spread out like fans – and gave an almost seven foot wingspan. Five large tentacles wriggled aimlessly and divided twice into smaller, finer tentacles, stretching out from the underside of the being while its six vestigial arms flailed and clawed at the air. The starfish-shaped appendage that appeared to be its head was adorned with five eyes, five eating tubes, and a set of prismatic cilia. It appeared to be … sniffing. As its beady yellow eyes darted to and fro – scanning the empty streets for something – Michael took a step backward. The movement caught the being’s attention. Its eyes flashed and settled on Michael. It made a sound he assumed was a growl and slithered preternaturally toward him.

Michael was frozen in terror as he stared at the horror before him. His mind began trying to rationalize what it was he was seeing, and coming up woefully short. If it was possible for vision to  _ pulse _ , that’s what Michael was experiencing. That vice gripped his head again, but he found himself unable to look away, and the longer he looked at it, the more his heart pounded in his ears. He was entirely helpless to defend himself against such an abomination.

Luckily, he wouldn’t have to.

Kalfu seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, when actually he was just blindingly fast. Even at his more human size, he had tremendous strength in fighting the monstrosity off. The elder thing thrashed at him and snapped its razor sharp, slime covered teeth at the deity. It flailed, wriggling in Kalfu’s grip, still trying to chomp at the startled human.

Kalfu tightened his grip on the thing and ripped one of its useless arms off. Green pus oozed out of the fresh wound and coated the ground with its slick. An ear splitting screech pierced he air as the thing squirmed in agony. Now injured, it turned its attention onto Kalfu, hissing venomously. One of the appendages that formed the star-shaped head struck out at Kalfu like a cobra, only managing to graze the deity’s shoulder. A mighty roar rumbled out of the humanoid’s throat and he ripped one of the wings off of the hostile creature.

Michael finally managed to look away from the monstrosity and kept his eyes on Kalfu. He couldn’t help feeling that perhaps Kalfu was there to protect him, but he knew that was probably not the case.

He gathered his wits and slowly started to back away from the fight, turning to run to safety only when he knew he wouldn’t be a distraction. He looked around and grit his teeth, glancing back at the battle between old ones. He couldn’t leave Kalfu in the lurch like that. Not when the thing was wrapping two of its tentacles around the deity’s neck.

Before he realized what was happening, Michael started running again. Only this time he wasn’t running toward the train station like he had initially intended. He was running directly toward the struggle, picking up a large rock along the way.

The tentacles tightened around Kalfu’s neck, and he began to show signs of lack of oxygen. The deity didn’t notice anything outside of the thing suffocating him. He tried grabbing any appendage he could get his hands on and ripping it off, but it was no small feat. Elder Things such as this one had evolved to survive in the deepest depths of the ocean, as well as in the vacuum of space. He could tear it apart, but he felt his strength slowly begin to leave him.

Then, without warning, the tentacles slipped from his neck. Kalfu gasped for air, blinked his vision back into focus and saw what was happening. Michael was smashing the rock he had grabbed into one of the many eyes. The thing bled green, its life essence spurting out as the writhing appendages attached to its head tried to snap at Michael. Its flailing arms all seemed to focus on grabbing at the human, one set of wings flapping to try to balance itself as it reached, but it came up short. Kalfu had grabbed it by the two extended wings and yanked it back.

It pulled its wings back out of the god’s grip and tucked its four remaining wings against its body, wobbling slightly as it tried to balance itself on its tentacles. It turned on Kalfu and screeched, an impossibly long tongue striking out, but the humanoid grabbed it by the tongue and tugged it further away from Michael. There was no time now, but he had to thank the human for saving his life. For the moment, he focused his energy on sharpening his nails into claws and ripping into the flesh of the thing.

Kalfu now freed from the strangling grip of the creature’s tentacles, Michael ducked out of the way and snuck off to watch the struggle.

The thing was unnatural in its grace, its numerous smaller tentacles helping it move fluidly, even without the aid of its wings for balance. Kalfu lashed out and slashed at the opalescent flesh of the thing. The abomination’s arms ceased their flailing in favor of trying to grab at Kalfu. With its tentacles and its wings put out of use, all it had were its arms and teeth to deal damage with, and Kalfu was far more graceful than it.

He ducked under the vestigial arms and dug his claws into what was probably its belly and ripped upward. The creature froze for a moment as its intestines spilled out onto the cobblestone pavement. Kalfu watched with cold eyes as the monstrosity twitched, only satisfied when the twitching subsided entirely.

Michael dared to poke his head out of his hiding spot and look at the dead elder thing in the street. He stared at it, the fog playing tricks on his already addled mind. The longer he looked at it, though, the less he felt it affected him. Perhaps it was due to the creature’s life force gushing out onto the bricks below it. That must have been it.

His gaze lifted and landed on Kalfu once more. Before he could stop himself, his arms were around the deity. He held the embrace for barely more than a second before he regained himself and took a large step backward. “I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly. Why had he hugged the god? What had possessed him to do that? He was about to say something else when the gash on Kalfu’s shoulder caught his attention. “You’re hurt,” he breathed.

His thoughts occurred moments too soon, because Kalfu sank to one knee. The elder thing was venomous, and in the street lights, Michael could see the wound had turned a dark purple color. That couldn’t have been good for anyone.


	5. Chapter 5

“I need to get to my lagoon,” Kalfu breathed. His hand pressed against the gash to stop the bleeding, but he knew there was nothing he could do to help the venom until he got back to the cave. He forced himself to his feet, and found himself surprised when Michael helped steady him. “You don’t need to-“

“I know.” Michael pulled Kalfu’s uninjured arm over his shoulders. Once again, out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw Chuck, watching from a second story window, scowling. When he chanced a look, however, the face was gone. He frowned and they started the trek back to the beach that led to the cave. 

It was … interesting, to say the least. He didn’t think he’d willingly be returning to the cavern so soon, but something primal in him was pushing him to see this thing through. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt as though his morbid curiosity about Kalfu might have morphed into true fascination. They shuffled through the sand, weaved through the rocks, and he stopped at the dark maw of the hollow.

Kalfu lifted a hand and a rotating ball of water seemed to materialize in the air, forming a luminescent sphere to guide their path. Michael was enchanted by this magic but knew there was no time to admire it yet. He wasn’t sure how fast the venom was spreading, but he knew time was a precious commodity.

They made their way through the tunnel and back to the cavern adorned with statues of the deity. As intimidating as the place might have been to him earlier, it almost seemed inviting now. Michael ventured past the point he had been bound to, doing his best to avoid looking at it, and peered around the structure. The structure was hollowed, and inside was a natural grotto.

Kalfu stepped into the water and disappeared into its surprising depths. Michael watched the surface of the water for what must have been 20 minutes. As time went on, he started wondering what he was still doing there. He could run, but then he supposed he wouldn’t learn what was really going on here. What had Kalfu meant when he said he wasn’t sure what he wanted? What was that thing that had attacked them? Why had he dreamt of this cavern on the way here? He had so many questions that would never be answered had he decided to run away.

When Kalfu reemerged, Michael knelt at the water’s edge and leaned in to inspect the injured shoulder.

The god lifted his head mostly out of the water and didn’t appear to be in pain anymore. What he did appear to be was surprised, to say the least, that Michael hadn’t taken the chance to make a break for it again. “Thank you,” he said at last, “for helping me back there.”

Michael shook his head, lips unwittingly curling into a crooked smile. “You saved me. You didn’t have to, but you did.” He sat back on his heels and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for running out on you. Honestly, I was scared.” Of course he was scared. He had been kidnapped. Who wouldn’t have been scared? Now that he thought about it, was that the only reason he had run away? Thinking back, he hadn’t been that truly terrified of Kalfu.

“Honestly? I’d have been surprised if you had stayed,” Kalfu said with the smallest smirk.

Something wasn’t sitting right with Michael, though. He bit his lip and looked at the cave floor underneath him, thinking quietly. “You said you hadn’t figured out what you want with me,” he said. “Does that mean–“ He wasn’t totally sure where he was going with this. Did it mean that Kalfu hadn’t decided what kind of spices to eat him with? Or did it mean he wasn’t sure what sort of jewelry to make out of his bones? Or did it mean he hadn’t quite figured out which tropical beach to surprise Michael with? “What does that mean?”

Kalfu wasn’t entirely sure. He pulled himself out of the water and sat at the edge of the pool.

Michael noticed now that Kalfu’s injury was gone. He touched a hand to his temple, where the bruise had been healed, and mused to himself that the god had some remarkable healing abilities.

“I haven’t decided.” Kalfu wasn’t used to saying those words in some form or another so many times in one night, but here he was. “There’s something familiar about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but … it feels like I should know you.”

From deep within the cave, there were horrible gurgling sounds, and it was hard to tell what they might have been. Like everything else in this godforsaken town, Michael decided to ignore it. “Kalfu-“

“Please,” he said, “my friends call me Crowley. At least, they would if I had any friends.” Kalfu – Crowley – managed a smirk and looked at Michael.

Michael met Crowley’s eyes and was lost for a moment. His academic fascination was getting the better of him and he knew it. He boldly reached out and pressed a hand to Crowley’s chest. It was the first time he’d ever really felt anything with scales, and they were surprisingly soft. He wasn’t sure what he had imagined they’d feel like, but he wasn’t particularly expecting something so comforting. Why on earth he thought of the word ‘comforting’ to describe an Old One like Kalfu. 

Crowley was … surprised, to say the least. The sensation of being touched caused his breath to hitch, the bioluminescent markings rippling as the sensation washed over him. It was akin to a shiver shooting down his spine, and he resisted the purr that threatened to make itself known. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been touched by  _ anyone _ , let alone with such reverence.

Michael took the silence as a cue that maybe, just maybe, he had overstepped his bounds. He started to pull his hand away, but Crowley – still not quite looking at him – stopped him. A gentle hand on top of Michael’s own, gently placing it back over his chest.

“Why  _ did _ you help me?” Crowley asked. “You risked your life for me, when you should have been worried about your own. Why stick your neck out for someone you ran away from?”

Michael wasn’t sure what to say – or do, as a matter of fact. All he could think of was to stare dumbly at the god, unable to hide that he was caught off guard. “I suppose … I don’t know. I couldn’t help myself.” That sounded stupid and he knew it. Why was it so hard to talk to the god? Was it because he was a god? There was so much about this whole situation that didn’t make sense, but yet it also felt like he was absolutely meant to be there. He pursed his lips and thought about what to say, still watching his own hand on Crowley’s chest before finally saying, “I ran away too hastily. As you said, I was kidnapped. I didn’t know what to do or think. All I knew was that I was meant to be a sacrifice, and I was scared.”

Michael thought for another couple of moments, though what about even he wasn’t sure. If there was a worse time for his thoughts to go almost completely blank, he wasn’t sure what it might have been. All he knew was that he was utterly fascinated by Crowley, and he wanted to know why it was he was there. The more he looked at Crowley, though, the more at ease he felt. A far cry from the abyss he had stared into when their eyes had first met. He asked again, “What do you want from me?” The question was softer this time, less demanding. It was, however, more pleading.

Crowley didn’t know what the answer was. “I’m as fascinated by you as you are by me,” he admitted. “There’s something about you that–” He cut himself off, not really sure how to finish the sentence.

Michael tried to resist the temptation, but he simply couldn’t. He leaned in and rested his head against Crowley’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He told himself it was only going to be for a moment. After all, it had been who knows how long since he’d last slept on the train, and that was hardly a restful sleep. Soon enough, he was asleep.

Crowley blinked his surprise and slowly wrapped an arm around Michael, hoping to offer him some sense of protection while he was asleep. He, of course, kept the human’s hand on his chest and leaned his head against the other’s.

In the few hours that Michael slept, Crowley was left to his own thoughts. He couldn’t help but wonder if there had been a purpose in Chuck trying to sacrifice his own son. Had he disrupted some ineffable plan? He wasn’t sure, but he had the feeling that he wasn’t about to regret whatever actions he had taken to get to this point.


	6. Chapter 6

Crowley watched as Michael slept, unable to pull his gaze from the human’s face. He had never truly been this close to a human before, and certainly not in this context. Humans were usually driven mad by the very sight of him. Seeing one nuzzled up against him was a very different, not wholly unwelcome feeling. He could hardly deny the warmth that spread through his chest, feeling the heat of the man’s body against his, the sensation of the other’s chest rising and falling slowly.

The thought did occur to him that if there was something darker at work, he was possibly the only chance Michael had to survive. If the Elder Thing had been sent after him, it was very possible that was the case. Though, he could only imagine that the Elder Thing had been sent after Kalfu himself, and that Michael simply smelled just enough like him that the Thing was confused. That begged the question, though: What might have sent the Thing after him in the first place?

Unconsciously, he wrapped both of his scaly arms around Michael and ran a webbed hand through the dark mop of hair atop his head.

The sensation caused Michael to stir and look up at Crowley. Their eyes met for a moment, and neither of them wanted to be the first to look away. The abyss was staring back at Michael, and he was completely entranced by it. The allure of the god was getting the better of him, and he knew it.

“How did you sleep?” Crowley asked. When did his heart begin pumping so loudly?

“Amazingly well,” he replied. Michael managed a smile. It hadn’t escaped his attention that the god’s arms were still around him. He dared to put his own arms around Crowley, watching the ripple of bioluminescent light flutter its way across the other’s body. “I’m sorry, you were going to say something before I fell asleep.”

“It’s not important,” Crowley assured him. There was a moment’s silence between them, as they regarded each other, mutually captivated. The god was the first to blink. He cleared his throat and glanced away to gather his thoughts before speaking again. What was it about this human? There was something different about him he couldn’t quite but his finger on. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” he said.

“I do, actually.” Michael shifted his weight, turning so his back was leaning against Crowley’s chest. “Why Stockton? It just seems like a really obscure place for a deity to set up shop.”

“Well, I started in Spain, but during the Inquisition I lost almost all of my followers. So, I ended up in the Amazon, but Christian Missionaries came through and converted all of my tribes. One thing led to another, and I washed ashore here.” He gestured around the cave and looked up at the stained glass window above them. “The people here were desperate for leadership, so I filled in. Soon enough, they worshipped me.” He was silent for another moment as he contemplated the benefits of being honest with Michael. Ultimately, he decided honesty was the best policy. “Up until now, humans have meant very little to me. They weren’t really good for anything except service.”

Michael fell silent. He had almost forgotten that Crowley wasn’t exactly on the side of good, but he wasn’t totally sure he was evil either. After all, Michael himself had certainly done some shady things to benefit himself and his brother. And, as far as he could tell, Crowley was working to help the town. In, perhaps, his own obscure way. “What changed your mind? It sounds like you don’t believe that anymore.”

Kalfu looked at Michael at last, lip tilting up into a half-smile. “Almost all of the humans I’ve encountered are only out for themselves. They’re quick to turn their heads when others are in trouble. But you? You took a chance on saving me, and you got me back to my lagoon. Not a lot of beings in this world would bother.”

Michael smiled softly and rested a hand on top of Crowley’s, resisting the urge to nuzzle back against him. He was awfully comfortable to lean on. Surprisingly so. But there was still one question he felt he needed to ask. “But … Why Stockton? You know? What happened to those people?”

Crowley didn’t want to answer, because he knew the answer wasn’t particularly going to win any points in his favor. He took a deep breath and looked down at the surface of the water in front of them. “I happened to them.” He took a moment before he continued, and didn’t look at Michael while he spoke. “The longer humans are exposed to me, the more they become like me.”

Michael considered this for a moment. It sounded like it was a side effect of having Kalfu nearby, not something he was purposefully doing. Well, he’d looked past enough oddities about this town to justify looking past what may as well have been a virus. “Is there a way to cure them?”

“No,” he said, rather simply. “I need them as much as they need me. Without their faith, I am nothing. They provide me with life, and in return I protect them.”

It was a sentiment Michael could almost understand. “I feel the same way about my brother,” he confessed. “I take care of him. Have ever since dad up and left us.” He was about to stop, but the look on Crowley’s face begged him to continue. He wasn’t sure he could manage, however. He wasn’t used to talking about himself in any real capacity. “My brother was only 6 when dad left. He didn’t know what was going on, so I kept him in the dark, more or less.” He chuckled weakly and looked at his hands. “A few years ago, before alcohol was legalized, I got in bad with some worse people. They paid well, which was all I really needed, but it was my job to cart the bootleg liquor across state lines. I got caught more than once and jailed as many times.” Michael turned his body to face Crowley again, gaze finally coming up to meet the other’s once more. There was still a thrumming in his head as he looked into the pitch blackness of Crowley’s eyes, but it wasn’t the maddening experience it was earlier.

“I’m truly sorry to hear that life has been anything but amazingly kind to you.” Crowley thought for a moment. Surely there had to be some way he could make it up to this human. He got up and disappeared into what might have been another room, reappearing moments later with a small sack. He took a seat next to Michael again, letting his legs dangle in the water comfortably, before awkwardly offering the bag to the sapien.

Michael opened up the sack and marveled at what he saw. Inside were pearls and jewels, the smallest of which could have easily bought a house. He looked back at Crowley, who was averting his gaze. “This might be enough to set me up for life,” he said with a small smile. “You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s the least I can do to apologize for what happened here.” Crowley still wasn’t looking at him. “You can use it for when you go home.”

Michael, now a little more confident, gently cupped the god’s cheek in his hand and brought his chin a little closer so they were looking at each other. “No one said I had to leave immediately.”

Before he could stop himself, Crowley leaned in. Slowly, of course, unable to help himself. There was something about Michael’s scent that was … cozy, he supposed. Intimate. There was something about the man that made him want to protect him. Something that lit his cold blood aflame.

What was surprising was that Michael wasn’t shying away. In fact, there was something strange that felt something like kinship with the deity. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt as though he was meant to be here, in some capacity or another.

Their lips were barely a breath away when a voice came from the darkness surrounding them.

“How sentimental,” it said.


	7. Chapter 7

Crowley snapped out of his daze and stood, fins bristling angrily. He placed himself between the voice and Michael, much to the human’s surprise. “Show yourself,” he hissed.

There was a shadow on the wall that seemed to be staring at them. Crowley glared at it and looked in the direction of the light source, surprised to see no one there. When he looked back at the shadow, it was gone. The shadow reappeared on the wall behind Crowley and laughter echoed through the cavern.

It was laughter Michael thought he recognized. But it couldn’t be. This laughter had no mirth in it. No warmth. It was cold and cruel.

Michael stood and looked around until his back was pressed against Crowley’s. He could feel the other’s dorsal fin twitch almost nervously against his back. Instinctively, he reached back and set his hand against Crowley’s hip.

Amazingly, it did help set the god at ease, even if it was only slightly. However, Crowley was far more concerned with Michael’s safety than he was with his own. A low, primal hiss reverberated through Crowley’s throat as the deity bared his teeth at the shadow. When the shadow materialized into a corporeal form, Crowley held his arms up to protect Michael and keep the human protected. It was a face both of them knew.

“Father?” Michael was shocked to see the face of Chuck Shurley looking back at them from the shadows.

Chuck smirked and walked toward them, causing them to take a step back. “Why couldn’t you just be the good boy you always were and listen to me?” he asked, venomously. “You were supposed to be a catalyst, and indeed you were. But I must have miscalculated the mixture.”

“What are you talking about?” Crowley demanded. “What is your meaning?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chuck chuckled and a darkness began to overtake him. It started as a shadowy aura around him, and coalesced into a vein that crept up from his collar. “I meant for my son to kill you, but you grew attached.” He looked at Michael with a disappointed frown. “And you … to think that I spawned such a pathetic-“

Crowley roared and slashed at Chuck with his claws, but he met only mist. He stared at the cultist, snarling savagely as the mist reformed into the shape of Chuck. As soon as it had reformed, he smashed his head into the cultist’s face, causing his head to snap back from the force of the impact. Crowley grabbed Chuck by the collar of his grimy button down. “You will not speak to him like that,” he growled. “You gave up your claim to him when you offered him to me. Now, you will leave Stockton, and you will never come back.”

“How cute, you think you can give me orders,” Chuck said, daring to put a hand on Crowley’s wrist. Crowley snarled and tightened his grip on Chuck’s shirt collar, but the dark vein in the cultist’s neck seemed to be extending into his face and spreading. “I’m surprised at you, Kalfu. You could tell Michael was one of your own, but not me?”

Crowley gaped and stared at the cultist – assumed cultist – wondering to himself what the R’lyeh he was talking about. What did he mean when he said Michael was one of his own? And what did he mean by suggesting that he was the same? Like Michael, there had always been something off about his scent, but he’d never been able to place it. Well, until now. His black eyes widened as realization washed over him. “Nyarlathotep.”

Chuck smirked and the darkness consumed him, branching out of the vein and snaking its way across his features until his entire face was the color of pitch. His eyes burned white and he shifted his gaze to Michael, grinning an awful, toothy grin. “Hello, son.”

If there was any time for Michael to have an existential crisis, it was in this moment. He wasn’t human? This flew in the face of everything he had known about reality. Though, the revelation could explain why it had been so easy for him to look past the eccentricities of the town.

This epiphany seemed to unlock memories he had never lived, something primal in his genetics. He remembered stars, the depths of the ocean, the highest mountain top, far off worlds, and inconceivable architecture. Kingdoms underwater and ruled by great beings. One, he recognized as Kalfu. Another appeared to have large, leathery wings and the head of a cuttlefish, its tentacles forming what could well have been a beard. He saw more of those things that had attacked him in the town, and they seemed to have come from a pretty civilized society. Why that one had attacked seemed to make less sense now than it had before. Unless…

Unless it was Chuck that had sent it, for whatever reason. But why send it after his own son? Was Crowley the true target? If he was,  _ why _ ?

When he came back to reality, Crowley and Chuck were still staring each other down.

“Why?” Crowley asked. “What do you hope to gain?”

“My dear Lord Kalfu,” he said, “that would be telling. And I know far better than to give away the ultimate, cosmic plan before I know I’ve won.” Chuck dissolved into shadow and began moving freely around the cave. “Take solace that you are not the first, and you most certainly aren’t the last. But you are the first to give me so much trouble. Well done, you.”

“Then why  _ me _ ?” Michael asked, trying to keep his eye on whatever shadows might be moving. “What do I have to do with any of this?” He was less concerned for his own life, and interestingly he found he was more concerned with Crowley’s safety. He could deal with his own demons and his own crises later. Now was not the time. His hand sought out Crowley’s, searching for comfort. Nyarlathotep seemed to have some grudge against Kalfu, and Michael had a sneaking suspicion that he was somehow at the center of it. But to what end?

“My dear son…” The voice echoed throughout the chamber and sent chills down Michael’s spine. It was a shockingly icy tone. One he couldn’t remember his father ever using. Not that he really remembered his father in the first place. He’d spent damn near most of his life by himself. The voice continued. “You have everything to do with this. As I said, you were meant to be the catalyst.”

“Yeah, I heard the first time. Catalyst to what?”

Chuck grinned another dark grin. “War.”

Michael and Crowley paled. Well, Crowley paled as much as he could.

The two of them looked at each other, but there was hardly any time to deliberate. The shadows around them began to shift menacingly, Chuck’s horrible laughter echoing throughout the chamber. Crowley grabbed Michael by the hand and started running to the exit of the cave. There were far too many shadows inside to know which direction Nyarlathotep was going to come from.

“Running away? That’s not like you, Kalfu,” Chuck taunted. The shadows rushed after the two of them, darkness enclosing around them. Crowley seemed unaffected, but Michael was having a hard time deciphering what was real and what was not. Through the darkness, Michael could make out the shape of more elder things, but also a variety of other monsters. Several in the shape of humans, bloated and discolored with death and rot, with wide unblinking eyes and jaws that had been ripped clean off.

There was a spider, timeworn and massive, from which thousands of other spiders seemed to spill. What might have been a woman loomed over them. Michael might have found her beautiful, had he not taken notice that her skin resembled a shriveled corpse, and that she was bleeding endlessly from her abdomen. Behind her was a creature that resembled a six armed grim reaper with scythes sprouting from the end of each arm and no head, what appeared to be either teeth or spikes poking out of the edge of the hood that covered nothing, black feathery wings curling around it and the woman in front of her. There was another, more serpentine beast with what looked like hundreds of fingers wiggling out of its mouth.

Still more creatures of varying sizes threatened to close the indeterminate distance between themselves and the running pair. Michael tried not to look at them, as it caused his vision to quake and his mind to slip from his grasp. He clung to Crowley’s hand and, once they reached the presidium of the cave, frantically looked out to the horizon. “Pardon me, I think I need to go and panic,” he said a little too calmly. He walked over to a nearby boulder and leaned against it, trying not to let his mind slip completely. “Crowley, what are we going to do?” he asked, desperately. “My father is, I’m assuming, going to unleash all of those creatures onto this world, and we have to do something to stop him!”

“ _ We _ aren’t going to do anything.  _ You _ are going to run.” Crowley turned Michael to face away from him and gave him a shove to get him going. “Get out of here. Now.”

Michael turned back and looked into Crowley’s eyes, and he could tell the deity wasn’t kidding. More than that, he didn’t seem to feel the same pain in his head as before. The reason for that escaped him, but he didn’t want to leave Crowley to fight Nyarlathotep alone. He knew anything he could do to help wasn’t going to be enough, but he had to do something. “No!” He marched back toward Crowley, face resolute. “I’m staying! That’s my father, and it’s my responsibility to stop him!”

“No, it’s not,” Crowley hissed, turning away to watch the cave. He was waiting for Chuck to make himself known, but Michael seemed set on staying. “Michael, your father has the power to destroy everything in a five mile radius. I can hold him off, but you have to get out of here,  _ now _ .”

“No, I don’t!” Michael he wasn’t sure what he could do, though, if he was honest with himself. True as that may have been, he felt like he should do  _ something.  _ He knew now that he wasn’t human, but he didn’t know if that meant he had all the powers of a Great One, or if it just meant he had an honorary title. Whichever it was, he felt no small responsibility in trying to prevent his father from getting his way.

“ _ Yes _ , you  _ do. _ ” Crowley was sounding more and more desperate as the argument went on. “Listen, I might not make it out of this, but if I’m going to die, I want to die protecting someone rather than causing destruction. Don’t make me–“ He stopped himself, though Michael could tell he wasn’t about to say what he thought he was going to say. “I’m not ready to lose you yet.”

There was an odd warmth that spread through Michael’s chest when he heard those words. He didn’t know what to make of them, but he felt strangely … enamored with the being. For as long as he could remember, he had been the one protecting others. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, now that the tables were turned. “But what about you?” he asked at last. “You can’t ask me to just leave you here without help.”

“I can, I am, and I will.” Crowley turned back toward the cave, expecting to see Chuck directly behind him. When he saw nothing there, he looked back at Michael. “Listen to me, I will find you. I will find a way to make it out of this, and I will find you. Just  _ go _ .”

Finally, Michael could see the shadow behind Crowley growing. He knew there was no time left to argue, and so he turned and ran as fast as he could away from the cave once again. His fight or flight instinct was going haywire. He wasn’t sure what his plan was, but the urge to go home was replaced with a different need.


	8. Chapter 8

Crowley turned his attention to the malignant darkness that crept toward him, watching as it seemed to pulse to life. Soon, though, the darkness receded and left only Nyarlathotep standing at the mouth of the cave.

“If you think you’re going to hurt anyone, you’re wrong,” Crowley growled. “This is my town. These are my people. I’m not going to let you near them.”

“The infamous Kalfu, caring about a few petty lives,” he chuckled. “You should know, it’s far more than just a little destruction. I’m far more interested in spreading madness. In fact, I may just start with Michael.” He grinned and his skin began to split as his truest form began to mutate into being.

Crowley had never seen it before, and so he didn’t know what to expect.

The Old Gods generally had the ability to be able to look at one another without losing their minds, but what Crowley was face to face with was enough to make even his mind question itself.

Another leg burst out of the god’s vessel, and his skin began to chip off, something inside him stretching the flesh until it burst. Underneath the layer of tissue was something nearly impossible to comprehend. Three legs with exposed muscle that came together at a torso that seemed to be multiple bodies fused together to form one amalgam. Four arms branched off, spines lining the bone underneath the discolored muscle, even as the rear arms split to form two hands per limb. As Crowley’s eyes traveled upward, he saw no face. Just more exposed muscular tissue and what might have been part of a brain. The top of his head seemed to form a tentacle-like appendage that stretched for at least six more feet, thrashing wildly like a worm on the end of a hook.

Nyarlathotep stood at least ten feet tall, towering over Kalfu’s smaller frame. Kalfu knew he could easily grow to his natural size, but he also knew that Old Ones grew bigger with age. He was relatively young compared to Nyarlathotep, so he was lucky the other god saw fit to stay at a reasonable size.

Nyarlathotep stepped closer to the amphibian, two feet always in contact with the ground as he seemed to hover closer to him. The two vestigial arms that had split off from the limbs protruding awkwardly out of his back snapped like pinsers, which they could well have been. The spines lining the bone also seemed to twitch, as though seeking something out. Even in the darkness, Crowley could see that the joints of the spines were a venomous purple color. The appendage that was supposedly part of his head wriggled eagerly, sensing the apprehension on Kalfu’s being.

And there was plenty of apprehension pouring off of Kalfu, seeping out of every pore like sweat. His heart was pounding in his ears. Thoughts raced through his head. His chest rose and fell rapidly as his breathing became shallower. As much as his instincts screamed at him, he didn’t take a step backward. He defiantly planted his feet and gripped his hands into fists, steeling his jaw. “I know what you’re trying to do, Nyarlathotep. It won’t work.”

“But, my dear Kalfu,” he said, voice a far cry from the one he had used as Chuck Shurley. This voice was deep. Menacing, almost. It seemed to echo itself, reverberating against the harsh rocks and the cliffside that loomed over them. “I’m surprised at you. You should know better than anyone that our mission is to spread madness and despair. Why should you want to stop me?”

It was less about the why, though, and more about the who that was making him rethink his plans. Besides, he could care less about the world in general. As far as he was concerned, humans were only there to serve them. But it was Michael that stood out from the crowd. It was hard for him to believe that one almost-human could make him rethink his entire point of view, but that was what had happened. “I don’t want to see Michael hurt,” he said at last.

Nyarlathotep laughed, what looked to be exposed intestines squirming uncomfortably with the action. “Well, I can assure you, you won’t see Michael hurt. Once I’ve dealt with you, I’m going to kill him. But don’t worry. It’ll be slow.”

Crowley fumed and rushed at the god before him. His claws were sharpened into talons, and he sank them into the closest of the three legs. Nyarlathotep let out a pained sound before he knocked Kalfu back with such force, he flew several feet before ultimately hitting a rock.

The elder abomination glided over to where Crowley lay and knelt on one knee, lifting the amphibian’s chin to look at him. “You forget your place, Kalfu.”

“My place?” Crowley growled, voice barely more than a rasp, “My place is above you. Dancing on your bloody grave.” He grabbed the extremity that was lifting his chin, one of the vestigial arms, and sank his sharpened teeth into it. As Nyarlathotep cried out and tried to pull his arm away, Crowley sank his teeth further into the muscle tissue and  _ pulled _ . Purple blood spurted out onto the amphibian’s face as the small arm was ripped off.

Nyarlathotep hissed and grabbed Kalfu by the throat with his tentacle of a head and squeezed. The next thing Crowley knew, he was being slammed repeatedly against the sand. Each jarring impact made his bones shake, knocking the air from his lungs, and sending sharp agony through his body. He struggled to take in air, barely more than wheezing to get the smallest amount of oxygen. When it stopped, he felt a moment’s reprieve before being bombarded with fists from every angle. The tentacle released his neck and Nyarlathotep leaned back on two legs to kick Crowley into the cliff with the third. The rock cracked under the force of his body slamming into it, and Kalfu could swear he was bleeding from the back of his head.

Darkness overtook him, and suddenly there was a volley of hits from everywhere. As if the shadows themselves had sprung to life to attack him. Crowley punched blindly, but his fist never collided with anything. He was completely helpless to defend himself against an enemy he could not see. Before he could lift his arms to defend his chest, he felt the sharp sting of the spines slashing at him. Pain radiated from the center of his chest, and he felt warmth trickle down from the fresh wound.

He continued wildly flailing his arms, hoping to come into contact with anything. In the darkness, he saw nothing, so he wasn’t wholly convinced he wasn’t. Nyarlathotep’s cruel laughter echoed against the rocks, which made it hard to pinpoint where he was. Crowley tried running, but only ended up tripping over rocks he couldn’t see. The pain of falling over into the jagged stones amplified the ache he felt in the rest of his body. Eventually, he was tripped by something that must have been a foot, and he reached his claws out to swipe at the offending limb.

Caught off guard, Crowley yelped as Nyarlathotep wrapped his tentacle around Crowley’s neck once more and pinned him to the cliff side. Kalfu struggled against him, clawing at the exoskeleton covering the fleshy tentacle. The armor was too strong to pierce through at this angle, and so he was sure he was nearing the end of his life. He could feel it in every ache and twinge in his sore muscles.

He had thought about the day he would eventually die, but he never considered that it might be another god that would kill him. He always suspected he would die of old age. Kalfu felt panic begin to set in. He didn’t want to die. It was all Crowley could think as he clawed at the tentacle choking the life out of him and he gasped for breath.

He didn’t want to die.

He promised Michael. He had to find a way out; he needed to see Michael again.

How could he keep Michael safe if he was dead? His fingers rebelled as he ran out of air, growing slack when he ordered them to keep pulling at the tightening limb.

He didn’t want to die.

From out of the darkness, he heard an unfamiliar warcry, saw a glimmer of light. A glisten, reflecting off of something shiny. Unsure what it was, he covered his head and face with his forearms. Kalfu dropped very suddenly, body aching painfully as he hit the ground. Air finally filled his lungs, rushing in as he gasped. He reached for his aching throat and coughed a spluttering cough. Nyarlathotep let out an inhuman screech and stumbled awkwardly away from the writhing tentacle that lay on the sand, separated from its master. Blood sprayed from the severed end of Nyarlathotep’s head-like appendage, more blood staining the sand as it leaked from the detached limb.

Kalfu’s black eyes scanned the area for his savior and he stared with a mixture of relief and horror. It was Michael. As he lay dazed in the sand, he watched Michael swipe the knife in his hands at his father, standing protectively between the two of them. As Nyarlathotep shrank away from the blade, Michael turned and shouted at Crowley.

“Get up!” he urged, trying to keep Nyarlathotep in the corner of his eye. “We can beat him, but we have to do it together!”

Gratitude overwhelmed Crowley as he looked up at Michael. He was right. He was getting thrashed, trying to take on Nyarlathotep by himself. Perhaps if he tried to focus on taking on one arm at a time, he might have had a better chance.

Crowley picked himself up, climbing back to his feet as Nyarlathotep regained himself. The amphibian got his second wind and rushed at the elder abomination, leaping at him. He slashed at the elder with blinding fury, but Nyarlathotep’s attentions were seemingly elsewhere. He started to stalk toward Michael, who slowly backed away to keep the distance between them.

Michael turned and ran down to the harbor; Chuck was hot on his tail. Crowley was doing his best to keep the other god distracted, but it didn’t seem to be working. He tried grabbing one of Nyarlathotep’s legs and tugged backward but he just ended up being dragged through the sand. The pain in his sides told him to give up, and he ran ahead to run alongside Michael.

“I thought I told you to get out of here,” he protested, breathing heavily and raggedly. He was relieved that Michael had shown himself, that he was alright. The pain he felt with every bound he made, however, reminded him that the sapien was in critical danger.

“Yeah, I was really going to leave you to get ripped apart by a nightmare creature that happens to be my father.” Michael rolled his eyes and turned onto the dock.

Nyarlathotep skittered along the dock and swiped a spiked arm out at Kalfu, but Michael pushed the amphibian out of the way and took the brunt of the hit, with a brief cry of pain. It knocked him into the water, and as Crowley struggled to pick himself back up, muscles screaming in agony, he watched the surface to see if Michael would float back to the top. When he didn’t, he was filled with an indescribable rage.

He turned and started to slash at Nyarlathotep, but the other god laughed and knocked him back. “You have a choice here. Either you can save Michael from almost certain death, or you can kill me. Which is it going to be?”

Crowley frowned and looked back at the water where Michael had disappeared. All at once, he felt like perhaps he was losing something he had waited his whole life for. The conversation they’d had in the cave had made him feel as though Michael was far more important than Chuck was giving him credit for. Now that he’d saved Crowley’s life twice, Crowley felt indebted to the sapien. More than that, he felt connected to him. He growled, glancing up at Nyarlathotep. “We are far from done here. If you ever show your face in Stockton again, I will rip your lungs out.” He turned his back on Chuck and dove into the water.


	9. Chapter 9

After splashing into the drink, Kalfu looked around for a brief moment. He wasn’t sure how far Michael may have sunk into the water, but he knew he had to be close. Then he saw him.

The force of the hit Michael suffered from Nyarlathotep had knocked him out cold, and Crowley could see blood diffusing in the water around him. The spines must have gotten him. He swam closer to the unconscious man and gently took his face in his hands. He could feel a pulse, weak though it may have been. 

Being a creature of both land and water, he had a bit of air in his lungs still. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Michael’s, breathing gently to fill his lungs.

What happened next was something neither of them could have ever anticipated.

When Crowley’s webbed fingers slid to rest on the other’s neck, he felt something unexpected. Three ridges following Michael’s jawline. He could have sworn those weren’t there before. He started to pull back to look at them a little better, but Michael held him tight. Michael was slowly coming back to consciousness, and he pulled Crowley into a gentle kiss. The flaps of skin on his neck began to flow under the water as the gills became responsive.

Crowley melted, feeling the soft lips of the other against his. His hands slid down to Michael’s hips, holding him flush against himself.

Being in the water had almost warmed Michael, until he felt Crowley’s scaly torso pressed against his bare chest. He felt a chill run down his spine at the sensation. A hum rumbled in his throat, arms slipping around the other’s waist to draw him closer. The two separated and looked into each other’s eyes for a moment before connecting in a kiss again.

They rose to the surface of the water and, once they broke the surface tension, Michael managed a smile in Crowley’s direction. “What happened to my father?” he asked.

“He got away.” Crowley hated to admit it, and he hated the look he saw on the almost-human’s face. “I had to let him get away. You were going to die.” He watched as Michael’s expression turned from one of anger to one of confusion. “Don’t look at me like that.” He pulled himself out of the water and onto the dock, noticing now that Nyarlathotep was long gone. “Where did you get that knife?”

“I took it from the Inn. I figured I had more use for it.” Michael didn’t seem to be too bothered by the fact that he had stolen something, but Crowley supposed he had done worse in his life, if being a liquor mule had anything to show for it. When Crowley offered his hand to help Michael onto the dock, the sapien took it and pulled himself out of the water. He pushed his hair out of his face and let his hand trail down his neck, grazing over the gills.

Crowley noticed this and stepped a little closer to Michael. “How are you holding up? Growing gills has to be a shocking experience.”

“Is that what those are?” Michael tried to joke. He chuckled to himself and looked around the darkened harbor. “You ever have one of those days where you figure ‘this may as well happen’?”

Crowley chuckled and smiled, taking Michael’s hand and starting to lead him back to the cave.

Michael noticed that he felt no apprehension in returning to the cavern. Instead, he was almost relieved. “How  _ is _ it possible that I grew gills?” he asked. He glanced around the beach and noticed that his eyesight was exponentially enhanced. His rational mind tried to piece together why, based on the little evidence he had, and all he could come up with was that perhaps the kiss had been a catalyst to his own evolution. That Crowley had unlocked some-

“Genetic memory,” the god said, jarring Michael from his thoughts. “My best guess is that your genes are similar enough to your father’s that you can adapt to your surroundings. It may have just taken coming into more … intimate contact with a being like you to unlock it.”

It didn’t take them very long to reach the cave, and when they did, Crowley nearly collapsed. Michael caught the god before he could fall to the stony floor, and despite the pain in his own chest, he hauled Crowley further into the cave.

Safely tucked away inside the stone structure in the center of the cavern, Michael dared to kiss Crowley one more time before guiding him into the water. He’d healed once before, it stood to reason he could heal again.

Kalfu disappeared into the water, and it was hard to ignore the amount of blood that diffused around him. From the depths, an arm emerged from the water, beckoning Michael to join the god. He became very aware of the pain across his chest and slipped into the water after him.

The pool of water was far more expansive than he initially thought. It seemed to stretch for miles, opening up at various points with small holes in the rocky ceiling. He couldn’t see how far the water reached. With the distance, it faded to shadow. A shadow that, for the first time since he’d come to this town, didn’t seem to shift unnaturally.

His eyes came to Crowley’s form, and swam closer to him. The god’s bioluminescent markings glowed faintly in the near darkness as he ran his hand across his own body, healing the damage that had been done. There was a crackling sound, muffled by the water, as his broken bones began to knit back together. Where his hand passed, the abrasions disappeared in such a way that they might have never been there to begin with.

Soon after his own healing had finished, Crowley closed the distance between himself and Michael and pressed his hand against the sapien’s chest. He could feel a tingling sensation spread from the point of contact across his flesh, sending a shiver down his spine. He could feel the sensation begin to intensify as his skin mended itself. He watched in awe as the broken skin came back together.

It was less intimidating, this time, to pull Crowley close and kiss him. He barely noticed as they began to ascend to the surface of the small pool.

When they broke the surface tension, Michael pushed his sopping wet hair out of his eyes and looked at the god in his arms. “Why did you let Nyarlathotep get away?”

“I told you, I wasn’t ready to lose you.” Crowley looked down in something akin to shame, but Michael lifted his chin gently. Far more gently than Nyarlathotep had done earlier. When he looked into Michael’s eyes once more, he felt that warmth spread through his chest once more. “Why did you come back for me?”

Michael didn’t know what the answer was. He just looked into Crowley’s eyes, half expecting the madness to overtake him, but only found his heart pounding in his chest. “I didn’t want to lose you either,” he admitted. He ran his fingers along Crowley’s cheek, tracing one of the bright blue markings that adorned his face. As the deity nuzzled his cheek into the other’s hand, Michael pressed another, gentler kiss to his lips. “I  _ couldn’t _ lose you.” He buried his face in the crook of Crowley’s neck, and Crowley scooped him up to lift him out of the water.

Michael wouldn’t let go of him, and so Crowley laid him on the stone floor, gently laying next to him. He wrapped his arms around Michael, perhaps to try to warm him. “Whatever reason you did it for, I’m glad you stayed.” He didn’t like to admit it, but the words came out of his mouth anyway. “I was afraid, for a moment, that I might never see you again.”

Michael managed a small smile and brought Crowley’s head to his chest, pressing a kiss to the god’s forehead. “I was never going to let that happen,” he said. “You have to be exhausted. Get some rest.”

Crowley made a protesting sound, but soon fell asleep curled up against the sapien.

It was Michael’s turn to reflect on their relationship thus far, and he did so with a smile on his face. He realized, of course, it was never Crowley he was afraid of. As the god had said, he had been kidnapped. Anyone would have run away given the first chance. What was telling to him was that Crowley had never tried to stop him. Even when he was injured after the battle with the elder thing, he tried to tell Michael that he didn’t need to escort him back to the cave.

If he was honest with himself, he was rather enamored with the god. He was divine, but with vulnerability. He was strong, but sensitive.

As a matter of fact, the more Michael thought about it, he couldn’t remember a time he’d felt this way about anyone. It was foolish to think it was all done on his behalf, but Crowley  _ had _ chosen to save him instead of stopping his father. Either he was honestly losing his mind, or there was something deeper to the relationship.

Maybe he was just hopeful. As he started to fall asleep against the rocks, he decided that these feelings toward Crowley were probably worth pursuing when they woke.

Michael had his usual dreamless sleep, which was a much welcome change from the past couple of sleeps he’d been through.


	10. Chapter 10

They woke to sunlight pouring in from the stained glass window above them. Crowley stirred first, blinking his eyes open to see Michael’s figure squirming as he tried to fight consciousness back. He lost the struggle and slowly opened his eyes, vision coming into focus to see the deity’s face smiling down at him. “Is it morning already?” Michael asked, lips curling into a smile.

Crowley chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to Michael’s forehead. “It is, in fact.” The two of them stretched to wake up their tired muscles, and Michael was surprised to find no trace of any pain, residual or otherwise. As a matter of fact, he felt amazing.

As he stretched, Crowley slid a hand up Michael’s chest, causing a pleased shiver to run through him. The sapien smiled and took Crowley’s webbed hand into his. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had feelings for me,” he said, a tinge of hope coloring his tone.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were right.” Crowley’s tone was a little teasing, but Michael could hear the very real affection in it.

Michael stooped his head down to kiss Crowley once more. This time, however, there was an undeniable need behind the gesture. Crowley could feel it, compounded with his own need, and slid his tongue cautiously past Michael’s lips to gently explore. Michael’s tongue brushed up against the deity’s as his fingers lightly traced lazy patterns into his chest. The sensation caused a ripple of bioluminescent light to make its way across Crowley’s chest and arms, and he purred.

Crowley could not, for the life of him, remember a time he was attracted to a human. But then, he guessed, Michael wasn’t exactly human. Not really, anyway. The god supposed the mystery was what contributed to his fascination with Michael. That and his obvious good looks. Michael had very slightly tanned skin, a rarity in this town. His nose was straight, almost as though it had been carefully chiseled. There was a small cleft in is chin, and his jawline went on for days. 

Crowley took it all in. The alluring way his blue eyes darkened ever so slightly when he looked at him, the way his still wet dark hair clung to his forehead, the way his mouth hung open just slightly in bliss. All of the eons Crowley had lived, and he had never seen such a thing of beauty.

Michael pressed his hips against Crowley’s, his need growing more and more evident as the embrace went on. He soon realized, though, that he wasn’t sure about Crowley’s anatomy. He didn’t worry about it for long, though, as Crowley shifted his weight to better cover Michael, breaking the kiss to pepper more kisses down the sapien’s neck. His teeth lightly grazed over Michael’s flesh, pulling a moan from deep within Michael’s chest.

The sound was exquisite. Intoxicating, even. Crowley found he wanted to hear more, and started to unbutton Michael’s trousers. He fumbled a bit with the closure, and Michael once again swooped in to help. He deftly unzipped the trousers and let his length spring free from the confines of the fabric. Crowley’s slick hand closed around Michael’s length and slowly began stroking him as Michael pushed his trousers the rest of the way down and slipped out of them.

Michael captured Crowley’s lips in a kiss once more and slid his hands down either side of Crowley’s dorsal fin to rest on his hips. His breath hitched slightly when Crowley pressed his hips more snugly against Michael’s. Before Michael knew what was happening, he felt the other’s erection pressing against his hip.

The god grazed his claws lightly against his lover’s chest. Crowley bent down and left a trail of soft, lazy kisses down Michael’s torso, sending shivers down the other’s spine. As he made his way downward, he pushed Michael’s legs up against his chest and dipped down to press a few more kisses to the back of the other’s thighs. Soon, his eyes locked with Michael’s and his mouth disappeared between his legs.

Michael couldn’t help but wonder what he might have done in life to be doted upon like this by a literal god. He shivered and draped his legs over Crowley’s shoulders, hooking his ankles together to entrap the amphibian. The god’s tongue was almost scalding against his rim when contrasted with the coolness of the rocks beneath him. Before he could help it, Michael was rocking his hips into Crowley’s tongue, hand resting on the top of the deity’s head. There was no hair he could grip, and he was a little reluctant to grab hold of the fins adorning his head.

His jaw dropped open, though, as he gasped when Crowley pushed his tongue past the ring of muscle. He wasn’t entirely sure what kind of god Kalfu was to know how to do things like that with his tongue. He swayed his hips upward in a steady rhythm, riding the amphibian’s tongue like there was no tomorrow.

The god slipped his tongue into and out of Michael’s entrance, circling his rim every chance he got, and Michael’s toes started to curl from the overwhelming sensation. His breathing started to quicken, his chest rising and falling heavily. Michael reached down and started to stroke himself, eyes fluttering shut from the wave of pleasure rippling through his body.

Crowley’s hands squeezed at Michael’s cheeks, gently clawing at him, pulling him closer. When he pulled away after too short a time, he sank his mouth down onto Michael’s length, and the almost-human watched the entirety of his length disappear past the god’s lips. Crowley’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked deeply. “Crowley,” Michael purred.

Crowley’s head bobbed up and down in a tortuously slow rhythm, and Michael bucked his hips needily, begging for more. Michael groaned as he felt the god’s tongue press against the underside of his length and Crowley purred from the weight of Michael’s cock on his tongue. The vibrations sent shivers up and down Michael’s spine, pulling a moan from his throat with each motion.

Michael set his hands on Crowley’s head and rocked his hips a little more eagerly, slowly fucking the god’s face. Crowley, however, reached up and pulled Michael’s hands down, resting them on the sapien’s hips to hold him down as he continued slowly bringing his lips down to the base of Michael’s cock.

As he tasted the precum leaking from Michael’s tip, he pulled back with a pop, circling his tongue around the sensitive head and leaned over the sapien. “Tell me what you want,” he rasped out, running his hands up Michael’s thighs.

Michael wrapped his legs around the amphibian and brought him down into another tender kiss. “I want you inside me,” he growled. Crowley’s strong arms slid around the waist of the sapien, drawing him closer until Michael could feel the deity’s dick teasing at his entrance. The way Crowley was looking at him, it felt like he was a thing to be treasured

There was some small amount of pressure, and it was enough for Michael to moan softly. The amphibian slicked his length and slowly pushed into Michael, just past the ring of muscle. It was slow enough, that both men were gasping for breath by the time he was buried to the hilt. Michael groaned, from the stretch he felt. Crowley echoed the sound, finding himself almost surprised at the tightness. “So good for me,” the deity purred.

After a moment of letting Michael adjust, and taking a moment to adjust himself, he leaned in and nipped hungrily at the man’s neck, slowly adopting a steady pace. He rocked his hips into Michael’s, who in turn tightened his legs around Crowley. “Faster,” he begged. The amphibian obliged and ghosted his claws down Michael’s back, biting gently into his neck to suck a dark mark into the skin just under Michael’s new gills.

He rocked his hips up to meet Crowley’s, hands trailing up and down the being’s back before finally hooking them over his shoulders. His face buried itself into the other’s neck, his breath ragged. Nails dug into the scaly flesh of the god, trying to find a decent grip as he neared his edge.

Crowley picked Michael up, using the legs hooked around his waist as leverage, and turned to sit on the rocky ground, never once separating himself from his lover. His webbed fingers tangled into the dark mop of hair atop Michael’s head, gently tugging his head back and grazing his teeth along his exposed neck with a low growl.

Very suddenly, Michael shoved the god back and pinned his shoulders to the rocks beneath them, riding him at his own pace. Crowley groaned softly, purring, “Don’t stop,” and gripped the sapien’s hips tightly, rutting up against him needily. Michael reached down and took his own length in his hand and stroked himself to the rhythm of his hips.

They rocked together like that for another few blissful moments before their releases hit them simultaneously, Crowley’s filling his lover and Michael’s shooting across the amphibian’s chest in white hot spurts.

Crowley brought Michael down into a passionate kiss, softly whispering words of love and adoration that made the hair on the back of Michael’s neck stand up. What surprised him was that the words themselves were foreign, but the intention behind them was easily translatable. “Y' ymg' vulgtmah. Llll ahna ya.” They may as well have been the guttural ramblings of a lunatic, but to Michael’s ears, it was pure music.

He smiled and pressed his lips to the deity’s one more time before lying next to him. “What are we going to do about my father?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. He didn’t think for a moment that Nyarlathotep would give up that easily, but he also didn’t think Crowley would let them be caught by surprise as they had been earlier.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said, rather smugly. Though, why he was smug was anyone’s guess. He slid a hand up Michael’s smooth thigh and kissed his cheek. “We’ll be ready for him. He won’t catch us off guard again.” He leaned back against the pillows and brought Michael’s head to rest on his chest. “For now, we sleep. For tomorrow, we prepare.”


End file.
